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Memphis: Building Community Study Guide

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Day in and day out, our morning newspapers and evening newscasts document the consequences of our failure to value one another. It is a failure of truly global proportions. Memphis: Building Community recalls the voices of a few courageous individuals who tried to promote democracy by shattering the barriers that divide the people of Memphis and the nation.

Memphis: Building Community recalls the voices of a few courageous individuals who tried to promote democracy by shattering the barriers that divide the people of Memphis and the nation. These men and women struggled to create a sense of responsibility that goes beyond race, class, religious orientation, and culture. They worked to bridge differences by opening channels of communication.

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The post–World War I economy wreaked havoc on many nations, Japan included. Due to the postwar production slowdown, increased trade barriers and tariffs imposed by the West, and economic strains caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan fell into an economic depression two years before the global Great Depression began in 1930.[2] Thirty-seven banks were forced to close after Japanese citizens tried to cash in government-issued earthquake bonds that had been sold to raise funds for reconstruction. The economic crisis brought down the civilian government and brought to power the zaibatsu, family-controlled businesses that held monopolies within the Japanese Empire and kept close ties, and influence, with the civilian government.[3] When the Great Depression began, Japan was economically and politically vulnerable and increasingly unstable. Like other nations during such fragile times, Japan saw a rise in political groups promising to fix the problems of the nation.